‘Connie, she says seven thirty,’ Lolly said into the phone. ‘Yes, and it’s not going to be a late one.’

‘Do you hear that, Con,’ called Sasha as she dropped down a gear. ‘I need an early night.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lolly said into the phone, ‘I can’t hand you over, she’s driving.’ She turned to Sasha. ‘She wants to talk to you.’

‘Tell her I’ll call her back later,’ insisted Sasha.

‘I can’t do that, Connie, she’s—’

Eyes glued to the road, Sasha leaned over into Lolly’s airspace to shout. ‘I’ll call you later, Con.’

The phone still to her ear, Lolly looked with apology at Sasha. ‘She says she just wants a quick word.’

‘Hang up, Lols, she won’t take no for an answer.’

‘I’m sorry, Connie, but Sasha can’t—’

‘Hang up,’ Sasha told her in exasperation. ‘Just end the call.’

Lolly was still trying to reason with Sasha’s sister. ‘She says she’ll—’

The car jerked a little when Sasha grabbed the phone, turned it off and threw it in the back. ‘You just have to hang up, there’s no reasoning with her.’

Arriving in Hadleigh, they turned into a quiet cul-de-sac and pulled up to the kerb. Tony Gardner’s small detached bungalow had seen better days. One of the uPVC windows had a crack running the length of it and the rendered brickwork was crumbling in patches. There was an old garden bench against the front wall, fag ends littering the ground beneath it. Weeds pushed up between the numerous cracks in the paved-over front garden, where an old Fiat was parked. At the side of the property, furniture was dumped beside a pair of smelly bins in front of a sagging wooden fence.

Climbing from the Spider, Sasha and Lolly stretched. Sasha was leaning back in to get her bag when a large woman in a tee-shirt, a denim skirt and sliders came slapping along the street towards them, a cigarette in one hand.

‘Is he in there?’ the woman asked them.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Is Tony in there?’

Sasha smiled. ‘And you are?’

‘I’m his wife, is who I am, Angie Gardner. Well, ex-wife, I did my time.’ She scratched the stud in the side of her nose. ‘Is he in there? I came earlier and got no response. That’s his car, but he ain’t answering the door. Usually he’s watching Tipping Point all day.’

‘I’ve no idea, we’ve only just arrived.’ said Sasha. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Sasha Dawson, this is Detective Constable Lolly Chambers.’

Angie sucked on her fag. ‘What’s the silly sod gone and done now?’

Sasha sidestepped the question with one of her own. ‘You came earlier, you said?’